The Actor
By Adena M’lynn
Project Lesson - 37
Format Template: Spoken Word
YouTube @adenamlynnharmon
I convinced myself I was an actor.
Not a mask—no.
Not the thin plastic Halloween kind,
but a real actor.
One who can change like a chameleon
before your very eyes.
Watch me—
I can bend the corners of my mouth
into something that resembles joy.
I can let my eyes shimmer just enough
to convince you I’m alive…
to convince me I’m alive.
Oh, but don’t let her show too much vulnerability.
No, no—
just enough to keep you leaning forward in your seat,
just enough to make you question
your own willingness
to offer me help.
Because what if you did?
What if you reached out,
and found the stage lights burning you too?
So I give you a performance—
a tragedy rewritten as comedy,
a pain disguised as plot twist,
a sorrow packaged with perfect timing.
Clap! She enters.
Cue the applause!
But here’s the thing nobody tells you about acting,
The most dangerous role
is the one where you forget you’re acting at all.
The role becomes the ribcage.
The lines become your lungs.
You start believing the script
was written in your own blood.
She’s the most dangerous—
the self I’ve rehearsed—
when she has convinced herself she’s not acting.
When the costume feels like skin.
When the mask fuses with the face.
When the spotlight burns so long
that it becomes your only sun.
But she is.
I am.
This is acting.
A life lived,
but not by the soul’s spirit—
no, by the director’s notes,
the critic’s whispers,
the audience’s hunger.
And where is the soul?
The one who laughs too loud,
who cries without shame,
who stumbles into silence with unpolished feet?
She waits backstage,
chewing her nails,
wondering if she’ll ever be called to perform.
I convinced myself I was an actor.
But maybe—
just maybe—
the real performance
is learning to stop.
To let the curtain close.
To sit in the raw dark,
with no spotlight, no script,
no painted smile,
no cues.
To breathe.
To let the soul’s spirit
finally stumble forward,
awkward and trembling,
but unmasked.
And maybe the bravest thing I’ll ever do—
the truest scene I’ll ever play—
is to step out,
naked of all rehearsals,
and simply say
I am not acting anymore.
I am here.
I am whole.
I am—
me.
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